so the new girls aloud album ‘out of control’ is now online despite being officially released on november 3rd. i’ve already pre-ordered it, obviously, but i couldn’t help but listen to it ahead of time anyway. despite my previous objections to a certain girl aloud i can’t help but love girls aloud as a whole. OUT OF CONTROL IS AMAZING.

before i move on to gushing about the amazing-ness of ‘out of control’ i must first point out some initial objections. most importantly the album cover. the above image is my favourite of many fan-made covers generated in the heat of angry message board posts by a veritable orgy of angry girls aloud fans. (fans aloud?) those with hardy constitutions feel free to click here and see the actual album cover as i didn’t think i could stand looking at it on my blog . it is perhaps the tackiest album cover since britney’s in the zone. i mean it’s just embarrassing that anyone would think that’s appropriate to sell to people, especially after the stellar covers for the last three girls aloud studio albums (what will the neighbours say?, chemistry, tangled up – click to enlarge).
my favourite has always been what will the neighbours say because i love the girls aloud logo. actually, the chemistry album even had a special edition which had a bonus christmas disc and cover which was fantastic – click to view. i mean how come they could afford to do two covers for chemistry and now that girls aloud are, if anything, more popular than ever they choose to do a shitty cheap ass cover? i blame their poor-ass record label fascination records who, unfortunately for me, also release sophie ellis-bextors albums.

ok though, broke-ass album cover aside, the album is GENIUS. i wasn’t the biggest fan of ‘tangled up’ but it certainly had its high points which included some funky funky music. i’ve always been more a ‘chemistry’ man and i’m happy to say that ‘out of control’ incorporates more of that sound. in fact it almost sounds like someone threw ‘tangled up’ and ‘chemistry’ at each other and the resulting explosion produced ‘out of control.’ it’s rock solid from beginning to end (not including an unfortunate bonus track mis-step).

the album starts of with lead single ‘the promise’ which this week landed at number 1 on the british singles chart, and quickly follows it up with pet shop boys collaboration ‘the loving kind’ which, as expected, is inspired pop perfection. my favourite track so far is ‘rolling back the river in time’ which is a light & fluffy masterpiece to which i’m already imagining a yacht-party music video that would surely stretch the girls’ usual 20 dollar budget. ‘Love is the key’ is a brilliant 60s pastiche, ‘turn 2 stone’ is dark and beat driven and ‘untouchable’ is an electro epic. at almost 7 minutes long it is the perfect mix of heartbreaking and storming, pulsing synths. ‘Fix me up’ is down-right filthy and reminds me of something george michael might produce, ‘Love is pain’ is another depressing electro number (a theme seems to be emerging) and ‘miss you bow wow’ is classic girls aloud that perfectly sums up the ‘tangled up’ meets ‘chemistry’ vibe of the whole album. penultimate track ‘revolution in the head’ bursts out of the gate with big brass repetitions and the somehow insanely catchy ‘gimme da ting gimme da ting gimme da uh uh oh.’ it also has claps(!). finally, ‘live in the country’, which has been described as ‘swinging london town’ part 2, starts up with a deep bass line and animal noises before the girls go on to talking about (what else?) living in the country. it ends with a plethora of animal noises from kittens to lions and everything inbetween. completely ridiculous and obviously fantastic. xenomania have worked their charm again and ‘out of control’ is probably the best pop album of the year.
i’ll stand by that last part until i’ve heard the new britney.

the only disappointment, musically speaking, is the inclusion of bonus track ‘we wanna party,’ originally by lene from aqua. it is far too obvious and not nearly enough fun to feel at home on ‘out of control.’ in all honesty it should have just been left off the album as 11 tracks of perfection is much better than 12 with a final let-down. i bet it was cheryl’s idea.

so i’m currently enrolled in what is easily the most boring semester of my academic career. first of all i’m taking finance, accounting, and statistics which is like a trifecta of misery. on top of that i’m taking business law which is really quite boring and then i’m only taking one marketing class which just happens to be product management and pricing, aka the most technical and numbers-based marketing course available. my semester is so dry that i often have drink massive amounts of water just to palate the day. that and skipping a lot.

so skipping is fine when your instructors don’t know who you are but all too often, even when i’m rarely present in a class, teachers quickly recognize me and give me the ‘judgy eyes’ when i’m next present. they probably recognize me for my unique sense of style and air of superiority, or more likely for my bright orange hair and large frame. either way, being recognized is like the kiss of death for skipping. i start to feel guilty and obligated to attend class even when i don’t think it is always worthwhile.

in actual fact, this has all been a rather verbose build-up to discussing the professor for my afforementioned marketing class. i quite like this professor. his name is Webb Dussome, which i don’t actually know how to pronounce having missed the first week of school. anyway, i’ve noticed that he clearly makes an effort to know the name of every student in class which i think is pretty impressive. he knew my name immediately the first time he saw it and he uses it every time we speak in class. also every time someone speaks during class, he actually uses that persons name to acknowledge them. first of all, as someone who is shit at remembering names (an unfortunate trait i picked up from my father), i find his memory awe-inspiring as we are clearly not his only class. by my thought process, he must have around 4-5 classes and at 40-50 people/class that means he potentially remembers the names of 160-250 students per semester; quite a feat.

more to the point, despite his solid lecturing style, impressive memory, and engaging personality no one answers questions in class. similar to other classes it’s like pulling teeth getting people engaged. i’m literally there maybe once a week on average and i almost always end up answering a question because i can’t stand the awkward silence. so now i’m thinking everyone else in the class thinks i’m a bit of a douche because i show up once a week and still have the gall to answer his questions. i’m not unnecessarily verbose, nor do i randomly provide ‘insight’ from my personal experience (i HATE those people) but i still feel like my activity to attendance ratio is rather high and that might foster annoyance from my fellow students? i suppose i don’t really care all that much, it was just on my mind today.

so i went shopping yesterday to west ed with sarah and mikhaila. they both bought new winter jackets and i was surprisingly restrained. while i was there i again looked at these fantastic glovelets in club monaco that i had seen with candace when i was in calgary. i use the word glovelet as i’m not sure there is a real word for them. they are like wrist warmers with no fingers and just a hole for the thumb. the ones in club monaco are simple, black, and perfect. except that they are $40. that just seems a little ridiculous to me. i mean, not that i want them, but you’re not even getting fingers for $40. how much can a tube of wool with a thumb hole really cost to make? i ended up seeing something very similar in jacob connexion which i would have purchased but they only had them in black and grey stripes. so close. i ended up just buying little wool gloves in H&M for $2.99. they are a bright blue that is very now. i do kind of love them, especially as i’ve been sporting a very monotone look with my black jacket and boots and grey scarf and jeans. the blue is a nice pop of colour which i suppose the black glovelet would not provide.

i obviously still want them though. will have to continue the search next weekend.

since i got back from my trip to england this summer i’ve found myself very contemplative. at first i thought it was just missing family after being surrounded by a plethora of relatives for three weeks but i soon realized that it is more than that. it’s a sense that this is my last winter in edmonton. my last 6 months basically to enjoy this city and the people that inhabit it.

i’m feeling very sentimental at the minute which is also a combination of the above mood and the changing season. i always get a bit sentimental and contemplative as summer gives way to autumn and that gives way to winter. i think it’s the sense that you can actually see time passing in a very real way but i’m not really sure. it’s windy today and i love the wind, it’s like a gusting change, forcing its way through you.

back to leaving edmonton, a warning to my friends: i have a feeling this is going to be a very melodramatic few months as i’m thinking of everything with a certain amount of finality. last dance, and all that. it’s strange, the more i come to terms with leaving edmonton, the more i realize how much i’ll miss it. that’s not to say that i’m not excited about moving, just that the more final that decision becomes, the more i have to deal with saying goodbye to people that are an important part of my life. i know the important ones will still be in my life, but things will obviously have to change. the other night i had a particularly reassuring phone call with jo-ann (and trevor by proxy) during which she was having an ebay crisis but i somehow remained totally involved in the whole thing over the phone line which we both later laughed about.

the other thing , and i never thought i’d say this, is that i’m actually going to miss the city of edmonton. i had never really appreciated edmonton as a city until this year when i spent the summer here. summer makes edmonton. the festivals, folk fest, fringe, the farmers market, and a genuine sense of community. i’m not sure that on a balance, the summer makes up for the winter, but i still now appreciate the city in which i’ve been residing on and of for the past 8 years.

six months to go and suddenly everything feels like an ending. sometimes i’m too dramaful for my own good. it’s probably jo-ann’s fault.

so after the disastrous turn of events for cheryl cole i’ve had to reassess my love for girls aloud, specifically my favourites members in the band. now, nadine and kimberly can belt out a good high note, but my heart now lies with sarah and nicola. in the above picture i’m imagining the two of them hearing cheryl cole talking about the spice girls and breaking into fits of hysterics at the audacity of it before walking away in search of drinks as sarah sticks out her tongue at a now crying cheryl.

sarah is the resident party girl and sexpot. she always has a fierce, often experimental, haircut, and is often seen falling out the hottest night clubs. also she sings the ‘here i am, walking primrose’ line in the new girls aloud number ‘the promise’ which is obviously the best bit. nicola is the one who doesn’t smile all the time and shuns the fake tan that seems epidemic in pop music today. her combination of crazy pale skin and oft-times surly appearance definitely add to her aura. she also gets to sing some of the girls best lines.

sarah and nicola are now officially my favourite girls, aloud. i have attached another picture below of them at what appears to be a music festival. nicola is double fisting the drinks and wearing rubber boots (a girl after my own heart) and i’m getting a very jo-ann vibe from sarah (just look at that pose).

so i think everyone knows that in general i love girls aloud, and cheryl cole had been my favourite girl. until today. cheryl has done something so unforgivable and disappointing that i’m left bewildered and hurt at how she could be so callous. cheryl cole has insulted the spice girls!

in a recent interview with attitude magazine (the best magazine in the history of time, by the way) cheryl uttered the following: “It annoys me when people say we want to be the new Spice Girls. Hello, we’re Girls Aloud. We’ve lasted longer…” wait! who the do you think you are!? because i’ll tell you who you’re not: THE FUCKING SPICE GIRLS!

cheryl goes on to point out that she ‘recognizes’ what the spice girls did and that “Yes, they had worldwide domination, but they fell out, bitched about each other and went their separate ways.” this girl needs a quick dose of reality. as much as i love the aloud, they’ve sold 5 million albums in 6 years and are only big in the UK. the spice girls sold 55 million albums worldwide and their return last year was a media sensation. someone needs to learn a little respect for the bitches that humped the girl band across the globe and made it possible for acts like girls aloud to even exist. honestly.

respect your elders cheryl cole. also, how dumb was this statement? everyone knows that girls aloud are largely supported by the gays. and the gays love the spice girls. LOVE. the spice girls are like your first love that will never die and while girls aloud may bang out some lovely pop tunes, they will never match the spice. NEVER. bitching about the spice girls not only makes cheryl an ingrate, it also makes her an idiot.

so when i was at home in calgary over thanksgiving my family mocked my voicemail message to the point that i decided something had to be done about it. i didn’t actually want my brother to even hear it (as i knew it was a bit shit) so i kept picking up the phone meaning that he wouldn’t get my voicemail, only more and more annoyed. that worked just fine until the whole family literally tackled the phone out of my hand. it’s my own fault really. it started because i was mocking his aweful voicemail message. i suppose those in glass houses really shouldn’t mock others voicemail messages but i was obviously not thinking.

anyway, this all led me to creating a new vm message based on britney’s womanizer which i have a link to below:

was talking to my mum tonight as she’s been having a bit of a rough week. her and my dad are heading to costco to get new tyres and do a bit of shopping. also, dad is treating mum to a ‘romantic dinner’ while they’re there. i miss them sometimes, like today.

so i was watching television news yesterday and it was some random interviews of regular american voters and their thoughts on the upcoming election. one man stuck out particularly for me because he noted on obama that he wants more government control over citizens and as ‘government isn’t working already’ then his vote will go to john mccain as he favours less government intervention.

this kind of logic both drives me crazy AND helps further the right wing agenda. bush, cheney and rumsfeld have stripped the american federal government so thoroughly already that it will take decades to reverse the damage that contracting-out every possible job has already done. but this actually helps their cause as some (frankly idiotic) people think as the above gentleman, that government has failed in general and therefore should be abandoned in favour of letting the market take care of things.

SERIOUSLY? sometimes it seems as though the ideological gap between people like that and people like me is so vast that there will never be any hope of bridging it. i had hoped that this financial crisis would galvanize people and force the world to look at the failure of neo-liberal economic policies but little examination seems to be going on which scares me quite a lot. it is frustrating when the news simply seems to attribute the problems on wall street to greed.
1. greed = capitalism. greed is the foundation of capitalism and to say that greed caused this crisis without further probing the fundamental problems with laissez faire capitalism is ridiculous.
2. deregulation is what caused this mess so why aren’t people stepping up and demanding the re-regulation of the banking industry in america. and how can people vote for john mccain when he has pushed deregulation for his entire career and continues to push it despite the disaster on wall street?

what’s even more frustrating is that in canada we voted in a government that has emulated the bush cabinet in many key ways despite overwhelming evidence that the legacy of the bush years will be failure at every turn. my only hope is that the coming years will bring a swing back to the left as the bush years have shown us what happens when a country swings far to right. hopefully obama in as president will lead this swing.

two final notes:
1. it was ronald reagan that started all of this deregulation mess and yet somehow he is still a revered man among many across the spectrum political allegiances
2. it strikes me as distinctly hypocritical that conservative individuals push for less government intervention in people’s lives yet still want to restrict the right of gays to marry or the right of women to abort an unwanted pregnancy.

so i downloaded the second episode of beautiful people this week and it continued to be fucking brilliant. entitled ‘how i got my nose,’ episode two focused on a school production of ‘joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat’ for which the children on simon’s street were auditioning. subplots include debbie looking for meaning in her life (spoiler: it ends up being to look fabulous at all times and inspire people with her own quirky fashion sense, including the above mentioned skort) and hayley getting huge fake nails that annoy Debbie and make it impossible for her to read braille. hayley also comes out with another corker of a line with ‘no one wants to bang a blind bird.’ she’s absolutely brilliant.

beautiful people has got to be the gayest show on television and i’m loving every minute of it. it’s perfectly over the top (unlike the not-over-the-top-enough-judging-only-by-the-first-episode kath and kim). one of the best bits is a mix-up of different musical numbers in the street which i have actually managed to find a clip of and have attached below. hopefully you can now all see what i’ve been banging on about and why this show is so brilliant.